The Silly Holiday Card season has commenced. Over the next three weeks, I will receive dozens (or hundreds? I've never kept count) of cards with kind greetings from consultants, ad firms, and PR folks (mostly the last)--most of whom I do not know.
I will not decorate the walls of my sumptuous cube with these cards. I won't tape them to the exterior divider for my colleagues to admire. I won't even note who sent them and remember them fondly.
I will toss them all. Not because I am anti-holiday, but because these cards are extraneous. They waste my time and your money and create no goodwill. Humbug. Please, if you don't know me--or if you've just pitched me once on the phone and think I might remember, cease and desist. Clear out your cobwebbed mailing list. Stop the insanity.
How about this: For every holiday card you do not send me, I will personally donate the relevant cost to a charity of my choice. (There are firms that sort of do this anyway, though they still send a card to let me know they're making a donation in my name, which I don't really get.)
I think I am completely serious about this.
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Recent Comments | 5 Total
December 8, 2004 at 10:27pm by kpaul
hey, it's kpaul from J-Log. just wanted to stop by and say i posted something relevant here tonight before someone pointed out your post on cards.
thanks for the smile. i didn't even know you guys *had* a blog. ;)
i'll be linking you shortly...
best,
kpaul
December 9, 2004 at 10:26pm by Katherine Stone
How funny. I like holiday cards as long as they are personal. I take a lot of time choosing cards and sending them to people with personalized, handwritten notes and hand-addressed (by me)envelopes because I think it's a nice time to tell the people you care about or have enjoyed talking to or working with during the past year how much you, in fact, really enjoyed them. I love the cards I get (with the exception, I'll admit, of the ones where it seems like 4,000 were printed, which sometimes makes me feel that very little personal effort was made other than printing the mailing list onto labels). Since so much communication is done by email these days, it's nice to get a piece of paper I can touch with a personal sentiment in it.
December 9, 2004 at 11:00pm by richard
Wha, you don't like knowing that your office supplies vendor sincerely wishes you well, or that the janitor who cleans up your bathroom is "thinking of you"?
Yeah, I'm with you there... I barely tolerate the cards from family I haven't seen in years.
If the vendor cares, they send a basket or other gift that doesn't prominently display the vendor's product name. I don't want mugs, or t-shirts, or pens. I'll take a basket of fruit or even a tray of processed cheeses and sausage first...
December 10, 2004 at 7:36pm by Joe Soap
The sad part of the whole issue is that it has been proved that Christ was not born in December but that it is actually a pagan celebration of the birth of Tamus, the son of Semiramus. The whole sickening lie with cards, Christmas music, Santa Claus and the pretentious good will forgotten for the rest of the year are frankly banal.
Joe Soap (South Africa)
September 18, 2006 at 3:34pm by Tracy
I think you need a huge or maybe one of those gigantic, totally obnoxious cards that has two arms and gives you and automatic hug everytime you open it -- people spend a lot of time and effort into creating holiday card list -- selecting and buying cards with one single thought in mind, to reach out and touch someone -- let them know somebody is thinking about them and cares about their existence -- so throw them away if you must or what would be even better is to collect them all and donate them to your local shool, kindergarten, afterschool program or even to a child care in your neighborhood -- the cards that so annoy you can brighten a childs day by being recylced for their weekly arts & and crafts project or repurposed for them to make new cards from -- don't just complain look for a solution --